THE MUSIC SALON: classical music, popular culture, philosophy and anything else that catches my fancy...

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Music Professors

I ran across an interesting chart this morning. It lists the average faculty salaries by discipline and shows what the "opportunity cost" is of teaching instead of working in the private sector. Universities have to pay professors in business and management over $100,000 annual salary to compete with the money they could make working in the business world. Way, way, way down at the bottom of the list are Music and Fine Arts. Now why is that? Here is that chart:

ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE

AVERAGE FACULTY SALARIES (ALL RANKS) AT US PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES, 2012-2013

Business and Management

$104,141

Economics

$92,070

Computer Science

$88,704

Health and Medical Administration Services

$79,292

Natural Resources and Conservation

$78,711

Engineering

$78,357

Political Science

$76,349

Area, Ethnic, Cultural, Gender and Group Studies

$75,919

Physics

$73,987

Average

$73,838

Psychology

$72,274

Mathematics

$72,116

Nursing

$71,508

History

$71,197

Foreign Languages

$69,549

Education

$68,349

English Language

$67,542

Philosophy

$66,114

Chemistry

$65,794

Biology

$65,075

Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Services

$64,736

Sociology

$64,434

Social Work

$62,728

Communication and Media Studies

$59,244

Theater Arts

$58,332

Music

$57,120

Fine and Studio Art

$56,526

Yes, some musicians like Jay Z or Justin Bieber make fabulous amounts of money, but a music theory professor at a college can't exactly quit his job and start working as a pop star. People in the upper levels of business and management seem to have a lot of mobility, though. Economist Larry Summers, for example, has been President of Harvard University, Secretary of the Treasury of the US, Chief Economist of the World Bank and is now being considered as the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve. But what is his actual expertise? What does he do?

I can't think of any examples of composers or theory professors or musicologists moving around like that. Some might gravitate towards administration in the university and some move from one university to another, but usually professors stick to the same university and merely aspire to getting tenure or, if they have tenure, to moving up from assistant to full professor. Not too many want the job of Chair of the department or Dean of a major division of the university. Composers like Philip Glass just do one thing their entire lives.

I'm not quite sure what the lesson to be learned here is, but it is pretty clear that Western societies do not value expertise in music very highly. That's a bit of a puzzlement to me as I personally view expertise in music as a very high value. Higher, on average, than the value highly-paid economists seem to bring to the table. At the end of an economist's career, what does he have to show for it? Is the US or world economy any better? Does the US have less or more debt? Is the unemployment rate better or worse?

But a composer at least has left a body of work that hopefully does have lasting value and will give deep enjoyment to following generations. Isn't that worth more than screwing around with the economy?

Obviously I am profoundly biased and have no understanding of Higher Economics!

The Bach cantatas are probably the greatest body of truly great music that is not widely known. A few movements are very well known, but mostly not. Great project! I haven't listened to them all myself. But I have read all the Platonic dialogues...

If you look at the scores to some Bach vocal works, they don't look very different from his writing for solo violin or cello: long running lines of sixteenth notes with not many places to breathe! This is not typically how you write for voice.

Oh yes, for YEARS Bach the equivalent of a Beatles album every week. Hundreds of cantatas.

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About Me

Born in Alberta, Canada, grew up on Vancouver Island, lived a decade in Montreal, resident in Mexico since 1998. Degrees in music from McGill University in performance, post-graduate study in musicology. From 2008 to 2011 I wrote a large set of songs for voice and guitar on poems by Robert Graves, Wallace Stevens, Victor Hugo, Rilke, Aristophanes, Anna Akhmatova, Roethke, Li Po, John Donne and Philip Larkin.
Catalogue includes two suites for solo guitar, chamber music for violin, viola and guitar, two guitars and harpsichord and other combinations including three pieces for guitar orchestra published by Guitarissimo of Stockholm, Sweden. In the last couple of years I have focused on music for orchestra and so far I have written an overture and three symphonies.
Publications include two books of pedagogy for guitar, one on technique and the other on playing Bach, which included eight new transcriptions for guitar.
Four Pieces for Violin and Guitar are available from The Avondale Press: http://www.theavondalepress.com/catalog/four-pieces/
In April 2015 a new piece for violin and piano, "Chase" was premiered in a concert at Belles Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Gto. Mexico.